The Universal Herbal: Cactus Ficus Indica; Oblong Indian Fig.

The Universal Herbal;
or botanical, medical and agricultural dictonary.
Containing an account of All the known Plants in the World, arranged according to the Linnean system. Specifying the uses to which they are or may be applied, whether as food, as medicine, or in the arts and manufactures.
With the best methods of propagation, and the most recent agricultural improvements.
collected from indisputable Authorities.
Adapted to the use of the farmer - the gardener - the husbandman - the botanist - the florist - and country housekeepers in general.
By Thomas Green.
Vol. I
Liverpool.
Printed at the Caxton Press by Henri Fisher.
Printer in Ordinary to His Majesty.
1824Proliferous-jointed; joints ovate, oblong; spines setaceous.-The flowers come out from the upper edges of the leaves, like those of the preceding species; but they are larger, and of brighter yellow colour. The fruit is also larger, and of a deeper purple colour; the outer skin is also armed with longer spines. This is the most common sort in Jamaica, and upon the fruit of this, the wild sort of cochineal insect seeds, which is called silvester. Dr. Houstoun, who was writing a history of these insects, sent some of the plants from Jamaica with the insects alive upon them, and they lived three or four months after their arrival. If the fruit of this plant be eaten, it will dye the urine of a bloody colour. This seems to be a native not only of South America, but also of the East Indies, Cochin-china, Japan, and Madeira: see the seventeenth species.